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John Herbert
Herbert is an elderly pedophile who likes boys and lives on Spooner Street with his old, crippled dog, Jesse. He has a high-pitched, soft voice and a slight lisp. He is often seen wearing a light blue robe and slippers and uses a walker to get around. He met Chris when Chris took up a paper route and developed an unhealthy obsession with him. When the family returned from the South, he left 113 messages asking what had happened to the paper boy. Herbert frequently seems to make inappropriate, sexually-tinged comments to teenage boys. It is revealed later on that he is the eldest member of the Skull and Bones secret society. Origins Originally, he was going to be either a creepy driver of a school bus that Chris was afraid to go near, or as an eccentric ice cream man. Herbert has a high voice and speaks with a whistle. According to Seth MacFarlane, Herbert was created when Mike Henry would use his voice to scold the writers when they had trouble coming up with new ideas for episodes. He admitted that it made him laugh every time and decided to adapt him as a character. Mike Henry had also said that the inspiration was a senior citizen that used to greet him at the grocery store. Herbert first appeared in two episodes of the third season and was originally intended as a small time gag (as a lot of other previous characters before him), but due to high acclaim from fans, featured more regularly and was greatly expanded on in the fourth season. The episode The Courtship of Stewie's Father expanded Herbert's back story, revealing that he has a dog, Jesse, who not only looks similar to Herbert but also has mobility issues and has similar utterances. In the fourth season episode Petergeist, Herbert saves Chris when an evil tree in the yard grabs him. After the tree initially attacks Herbert states, "Hey Skinnybritches, that there is my man, why don't you pick on someone your own size?" Duplicating the scene where Gandalf confronts the Balrog from The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring, he then proclaims, "You shall not pass" and slams his walker into the ground, causing the ground under the tree to split sending both the tree and Herbert falling down a long chasm into water, again mimicking the fight between Gandalf and the Balrog at the beginning of the Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers film. It appears that he may have died in this episode, although a scene cut for time (and, according to the DVD commentary, Standards and Practices) had Herbert and the tree climb out of the hole after the Griffin house vanishes and Herbert asks the tree whether he was a giving tree or a receiving tree. The scene was later re-added to the DVD version. Herbert also tried unsuccessfully to hit on Stewie while he was doing Chris' paper route, saying "Oh ho, we've got a fighter" after Stewie verbally shot down his effort, exclaiming, while on his tricycle; "Piss off, you perverted old freak". Category:Characters Category:Spooner Street Neighbors